


A Little Piece Of Me Is Gone I Fear

by waltzmatildah



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 01:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10843557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: It is just the way he had always planned it would be.





	A Little Piece Of Me Is Gone I Fear

He meets Hannah in New Orleans. An environmental lawyer with a penchant for South African reds and a seven year old daughter she doesn't tell him about until their third date. Her apartment is like something out of an interior design magazine and when he kisses her up against the granite counter top, the whole event is as clean and as methodical as everything else in their lives.

_(Black curls circle his wrist, trap him tight, pull him in. Unopened medical journal updates and hastily hand-scrawled notes swept from the sofa without thought. Serve to create just enough space as knees lift up to grip at his hips...)_

They talk European politics and the global financial crisis and classical music of violinists from Pierre Baillot to Ryu Goto. She laughs and throws her head back and agrees wholeheartedly with his every word. He commands centre stage in her rigid existence and she, an ever present distraction in his. They discuss marriage and the fanciful possibility of more children and make ruled lists that detail the pros and cons.

_(When his hands are wrist deep in a cracked rib-cage, it is not Hannah's voice that dictates his every move...)_

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Seattle and all that it means starts to fade. It is years later and the ghosts that press against his shoulder blades tend to sit a little less heavy. The regret that coats his tongue, glue-like and tacky, starts to taste a little less bitter. Hannah walks with her elbow threaded through his and the staccato beat of her heels against the pavement provides an ever present backing track.

_(His arm aches when the cold is biting. Fingers fisted into a ball and teeth clenched to shut tight._

_He runs then. Breath clouding to envelope him whole with every step.)_

He wins awards and pioneers new surgical techniques and eventually accepts a professorship at Cornell University in New York. His skills are revered world wide.

It is just the way he had always planned it would be.

The list of pros and cons created back in New Orleans tucks into the cover of a photo album they've steadily filled with images snapped in Paris, Berlin, Rome. It remains nothing more than another carefully crafted compendium of _what ifs_ and _maybes_.

A list that is haphazardly-ruled-lines longer than he'll ever admit to.

_(There's a name that's tossed about in cardiothoracic surgery circles. An up and coming superstar that will turn the profession on its head. He nods and smiles and politely offers his agreement with muted murmurs and a ducked head._

It is not news to him.)


End file.
